Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 132 Military Organization Reform
Now that Prime Minister Primo has expressed his attitude, it is time for Carlo to express his position.

Carlo nodded, looking very agreeable: "Let's do as the Prime Minister said. Expanding the armed forces of the colonies is important, but we must not forget the development of mainland Spain.

In addition, when forming a colonial army, the ideas of the indigenous soldiers should be taken into consideration to a certain extent. The salaries and treatment of these indigenous soldiers can be appropriately increased to distinguish them from the ordinary indigenous people in the colony.

This way, we can ensure that these indigenous soldiers will be more loyal to us, rather than trying to cooperate with the indigenous people.”

Obviously, European countries, including Spain, did not have enough troops to guard their colonies. The method they adopted was to maintain order in the colonies by forming an army composed of indigenous peoples.

But there is a problem with doing so, that is, the loyalty of these armies composed of indigenous people is not so reliable, and some of them may oppose or even hate the colonial country.

In fact, the main problem is that these indigenous soldiers are also the persecuted party. They are no different from those ordinary persecuted indigenous people.

If their treatment is slightly improved and they are given more rights than the natives, these native soldiers will naturally be differentiated from ordinary natives.

After all, it is true that the indigenous people hate the colonists, but they also hate the indigenous soldiers who kowtow to the colonists and take up butcher knives against their own compatriots.

As long as they receive certain preferential treatment and enjoy rights that ordinary natives do not have at all, ordinary natives will be malicious towards them.

In fact, this strategy had been submitted to Carlo's office long before Prime Minister Primo convened this meeting.

The reason why Prime Minister Primo deliberately didn't say anything was naturally to leave some suggestions for Carlo to make. After all, Carlo is the King of Spain, and he can't attend such a cabinet meeting without any sense of presence.

It would be a good thing for both Carlo and Primo to let Carlo express his opinions appropriately.

Carlo certainly knew Prime Minister Primo's purpose. In other words, this might be some compromise Prime Minister Primo made in order to get the royal family to take the initiative to participate in the construction of technical schools.

Although it seems to be just a small suggestion, if the subsequent expansion of the colonial army ensures the stability of the Spanish colonies, Carlo will also get some credit for it.

Soldiers will be promoted if they have made achievements, and officials will be promoted if they have made achievements. There are also certain benefits for the king to make achievements, as his subordinates will be more convinced of him, and the people will have a better impression of him.

Prime Minister Primo's proposal is to expand the colonial garrison regiments to 20, that is, to expand the existing troops stationed in the colonies to 4.6.

Considering that the vast majority of the more than 10,000 additional soldiers were indigenous soldiers, it actually did not have much impact on Spain's finances.

After all, the salaries and specific welfare benefits of these indigenous soldiers are much lower. Colonies like Cuba and the Philippines can fully afford the expenses of increasing the number of indigenous soldiers.

The weapons and equipment these soldiers needed were also easy to solve. It just so happened that the Spanish native army was about to replace the latest Vitali M1872 rifles, and there were many obsolete muzzle-loading rifles, so it was completely enough to select some equipment for the colonial army.

Although these muzzle-loading rifles were outdated, it also depended on who they were compared with. In addition to the local natives, the colonial army also had to fight against some opposition forces within the colony. These people basically had difficulty obtaining large quantities of advanced weapons and equipment, and muzzle-loading rifles were enough to deal with them.

Doing so would not only solve the problem of a large number of muzzle-loading rifles and ammunition stocks eliminated by the Spanish native army, but would also reduce military spending as much as possible and weaken the impact of the expansion of the colonial army on the Spanish government.

With Prime Minister Primo's final vote and Carlo's approval, a consensus was quickly reached on the expansion of the colonial army.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were both very satisfied with this, after all, the final outcome was within their acceptable range.

The Spanish colonial army did expand, which was beneficial to the work of the Colonial Secretary. The expansion of the army did not affect the finances of the Spanish government, nor did it cause additional burdens for the Minister of Finance and the Ministry of Finance.

Since the topic was about the expansion of the colonial army, Carlo also asked about the progress of the reform of the Spanish mainland army.

Before the reform, the Spanish native army had a size of 7 people. However, more than 7 of these 5 troops were government troops during the reign of Queen Isabel. The quality of these soldiers was uneven. The purpose of this reform was to conduct a large-scale screening of officers and soldiers of the Spanish native army, leaving only those excellent officers and soldiers with both good physical quality and ideological level, and then expand the Spanish native army.

According to the military reform plan submitted by Prime Minister Prim, the 7-strong local army will eventually have to be reduced to around 5 to ensure that the officers and soldiers who remain are elite.

Then the local army will be expanded by selecting a number of civilians with good physical fitness and love for the country and the royal family to join the army, and the number of local troops will be increased to more than 100,000.

If we add the size of the army after this colonial army expansion, Spain will have an army of about 15 after completing its military reform in the future.

Although the size of this army is not as large as that of the great powers such as Britain, France, Germany and Austria, it is not much different from Italy, and it is also a level with a large number of soldiers and generals in Europe. The wars of this era were not as crazy as those during World War I, nor were they as large-scale as the world wars.

Like the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War that attracted the attention of most of Europe a few years ago, the total number of soldiers mobilized by both sides was only over 100 million.

If it were the First World War forty or fifty years later, the total number of soldiers deployed in a single battle might have exceeded one million, or even reached two or three million.

The number of soldiers mobilized for the entire war even exceeded 10 million, which was simply unimaginable for the powerful countries of that era.

At present, the three great powers with the largest number of mobilized troops are Germany, France and Russia. Because of Russia's large population, it is not difficult to arm an army of millions.

However, due to the influence of industrial production capacity and soldiers' combat capabilities, the combat effectiveness of the Russian army is not as good as that of Germany and France.

Germany and France also have large populations, and their military mobilization systems are relatively advanced. If they grit their teeth, they can arm an army of millions.

But unless faced with a war that determines the fate of a country, countries will not be so crazy. Whenever millions of troops are mobilized, no matter what the final outcome is, it will have a profound impact on the country's industry and economic production.

If there were a large number of casualties in the war, it would not only affect the industrial and economic production at that time, but also affect the future development of the country.

After the Spanish government decided to carry out military reforms in the army, it never hesitated.

At the same time as the agricultural rent reduction and minimum income bill was enacted, military reforms in the Spanish army were also proceeding vigorously.

So far, the 70,000 Spanish troops have been officially reduced to 50,000. Most of the 20,000 troops who were dismissed have been well resettled. They will go to the Seville Industrial Base, and some will wait for the operation of the Barcelona Industrial Base.

In short, these people will get better jobs and their lives will not be much worse than before in the army.

Upon learning that the Spanish army had completed its reduction, Carlo decided to expand the Spanish native army to more than 100,000 men after consulting with Prime Minister Primo and Archduke Serrano.

However, before expanding the Spanish army, it is necessary to make certain modifications to the current organization of the Spanish army.

Spain currently has six types of military organizations, namely the line infantry regiment, light infantry battalion, cavalry regiment, engineering regiment, colonial garrison regiment and guards regiment.

In the reform of the Home Army, the Colonial Garrison and the Guards were excluded.

This also means that only the line infantry regiment, light infantry battalion, cavalry regiment and engineering regiment need to undergo reform.

As for the reform of the military, Prime Minister Primo and Serrano are both military veterans, so naturally they have certain ideas.

Because of the experience of the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, line infantry was destined to withdraw from the stage of history. The Spanish line infantry regiment could be merged with the light infantry battalion and reformed into the Spanish infantry regiment.

There is nothing much to say about the cavalry, which still plays a big role at present. The cavalry regiment and the engineering regiment basically do not need to be reorganized too much, just need to strengthen the firepower and organization.

As Minister of Defense, Serrano put forward his own plan for the reorganization of the Spanish army.

Spain's new infantry regiment will consist of four infantry battalions, one grenadier battalion and one artillery battalion.

Grenadiers are an ancient type of soldier, and their name suggests their role. With the development of weapons, the main purpose of grenadiers is no longer to throw grenades, but this organization is still retained.

At present, the Spanish grenadiers are actually more elite infantry. Although it sounds like a grenadier battalion, it is actually a smaller and more elite infantry battalion.

The previous line infantry regiment only had one artillery company as a heavy firepower reserve, but the infantry regiment under the Serrano Grand Palace plan will have an entire artillery battalion to provide firepower support.

The original artillery company of the line infantry regiment had only four artillery pieces, while the artillery battalion of the new infantry regiment had four artillery companies, each equipped with six artillery pieces.

This also means that one infantry regiment alone has 24 artillery pieces, which is many times the number of artillery pieces of the original line infantry regiment.

The second update of 3,000 words, I wish you all a happy National Day!
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(End of this chapter)